COLORADO CONVERSATIONS 2002
Notes from Small Group Discussions
April 11, 2002
- What values and resources can people and communities of faith bring
to the work of building-up the broader community in Denver?
- You see everyday heroes and she-roes doing things under the radar
screen.
- We see a good network operating in Denver.
- Regional infrastructure enabling communication among service providers.
- In African-American communities, churches are the focal point - pivotal
to economic development and political discussion.
- In Latino communities - Chavez led grape boycott was the closest thing
to a Civil Rights movement. Catholicism was a common denominator.
- Colorado Council of Churches
- Was supposed to get folks together. But I am unsure of the status.
- Lack of visibility of FBOs.
- Unless you are in those circles, you don't know it or understand it
- a low profile and maybe even a low impact.
- Activists in the church are knowledgeable - but not the congregation.
How long before suburbia will face the social challenges of the inner
city?
- Low profile of those doing work and/or not having the resources.
- Don't focus only on the leaders.
- Do not focus on just pastors, but the congregation. All people matter.
- Depends on the part of town - making it real when it's not in my backyard.
- Building trust across groups - immersion experiences; putting a face
to the problem.
- Help build trust - develop relationships.
- Build common ground.
- Create new tables for people to come together.
- We come together when an incident occurs, but we do not have an ongoing,
vision.
- There are some church groups coming together - can we make that assumption?
- Talk at all services - facilitate language.
- Asset based resource inventories from congregations.
- Define community - very decentralized in Colorado.
- Develop internal infrastructures connectedness.
- Create a common ground for moral authority.
- Create a message that allows the poverty to be a part of a cocktail
party conversation.
- Phenomenon of secular, multi-denominations, multi-plexus in the suburbs.
- Communities being served by the FBOs - are they connecting?
- Leaders of the community.
- Call to Renewal sees poverty as the greatest threat to the health
of American communities. What specific problems is the Denver Community
struggling with? What are the collective goals?
Problems:
- Issues for low-income people are health, child care, affordable housing,
welfare to work, and transportation
- Affordable Housing
- Affordable housing is severely limited.
- Homeless teenagers
- Education
- Loss of the middle class
- Sense of common values or commitment to care for each other.
- Urbanization of the Denver Metro area and Colorado.
- Poverty is the same here - function of our system.
- Infrastructure
- No long-term sustainability
- No broader context to discuss issues.
- Access to opportunities/inequality (Denver's diversity is growing)
- Denial of problems.
- Dealing with gentrification more holistically.
- Decentralization and lack of regional infrastructure.
- Distrust of federal support.
- Immigrants have no trajectory of income or investments.
- Public discourse, problematic in a broader context
- Common issues of access
- How do you get people to think about these issues?
- Where is the leadership, lay or ordained, to name the issues - particularly
the faith community?
- The majority of the people do not recognize the magnitude of the problem.
Maybe it's because of our prosperity, the pressure is not there. We
need a regional approach.
- We need to get the information out (i.e. people with welfare show
up for care when they get their check).
- Host the broader dialogue where cities of faith are the conveners
- how are they inclusive?
- People are learning about these issues but it is not being translated
into political action.
- How do churches communicate with the diversity of the people who need
assistance?
- Have conversations inclusive of the diversity of voices, and the voiceless.
- Provide services, but how do they engage the systemic questions -
the questions of equity and justice?
- Have conversations inclusive of the diversity of voices, and the voiceless.
- Rethink how we approach the co-agenda, paradox change.
- Make people see that these are problems that we share.
- Have conversations inclusive of the diversity of voices, and the voiceless.
- We have a moral mandate as human beings to help others.
Goals:
- Not a sense of collective goals - void
- Difficult to come around common goals.
- Up to citizens - lazy, jaded, do not feel that the individual matters.
- Not their problem - our problem
- Shared problems
- In the work to overcome poverty and rebuild communities in Denver
how can we move beyond partisan language and existing division to develop
partnerships that work to help poor people? What are the barriers to forming
these partnerships in Denver?
How can we help?
- Take a chance, reach out and speak from the heart about the subject.
- People should talk about success stories.
- Think about turning your constituents into advocates.
- Denver is blessed - we have a lot of people doing a lot of work.
- Find ways to come together as a whole - not simply in crisis.
- Proactive views.
- Start with issues that affect all.
- Housing and religious concepts that transcends us (Channel 12 will
host this!)
- Taking it to the streets is what's missing - media has to be there.
- Moral Imperative - deal with people with what they do best, where
they are.
- Leadership - diversity is how we get to the cause.
- Spiritually elected representatives.
- Honoring organizations and what they do, but connect/build relationships.
- Transcend our own cultures.
- Managing expectations of partnerships.
- Everyone involved in the front-end - important.
- Good examples
- Housing Justice
- Colorado Progressive Coalition
- Interfaith Alliance
Barriers
- FBOs in Denver need to talk to each other, divisions exist.
- Segregation by neighborhood, by faith communities, and race.
- Event heavy city
- Lack of engagement in politics.
- How do we measure?
- What are the goals?
- What is the outcome of organizing efforts?
- What do we really want to see? We should manage our expectations
- What is in it for me?
- How does the spiritual communities provide vehicles of meaningful
contact?
- How to keep up this momentum - keep it as a crisis.
- The price of becoming involved
- What are the best or most appropriate ways for the different sectors
of society in Denver to work together in building community? What role should
each of these parties play? Should there be limits to these partnerships?
- Relying on organizations to do what they do best.
- FBOs - organizers of people. Now for organizations to motivate.
- Limits - how can we involve everyone, but not make devoid of spirituality.
- County driven politics.
- The potential role of government.
- Who are our leaders - who we are and what do we do best?
- Are we having the conversation about "the higher goals"?
- Different goals of sectors/agencies as a barrier.
- Would be helpful to know what's going on in the different neighborhoods
by the different sectors.
- Major obstacles
- Do not see the big picture
- More of a short-term focus
- Turn over, lose momentum
- More partnerships - seeing a collective goal.
- More forums
- People who have vision need to be discovered.
- Talk about what a world without poverty looks like.
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